


Between One Breath and the Other

by victoriousscarf



Series: Heart Like a Golden String [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Fili has a Fiddle, First Time, M/M, Pre-Cannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 20:24:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriousscarf/pseuds/victoriousscarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At a very young age, Ori had been told that dwarves loved once and forever.</p><p>While his mother sat behind him, braiding his hair slowly he found himself tilted his head back and asking her how he could possibly know. She smiled, hands sure as she plaited his hair. “You’ll know,” she said, fingers gentle. “You’ll see them one day and you’ll know.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between One Breath and the Other

At a very young age, Ori had been told that dwarves loved once and forever.

He asked Dori first, how he would know when he found that one. Dori had pushed a cup of foul smelling tea at him and said it would be a while yet. Sipping it, he watched Dori fluster around the room and wondered still.

Next he asked Nori, who’d laughed. Ori didn’t often get a chance to see his second oldest brother and wasn’t sure what such a laugh might mean. Nori had leaned down confidentially, and told him he’d know when he saw a dwarf and wanted to do unspeakable things to them. Making a crude gesture, Nori added some other words Ori didn’t understand. When he asked Dori what they meant, the fight between his brothers shook the rafters of the human dwelling they were renting out, still trying to find a home.

Ori stopped asking then, unsure of the answer but sure he didn’t want to see another fight like that. But while his mother sat behind him, braiding his hair slowly he found himself tilted his head back and asking her how he could possibly know. She smiled, hands sure as she plaited his hair. “You’ll know,” she said, fingers gentle. “You’ll see them one day and you’ll know.”

“Is it sudden?” Ori asked, tilting his head back and she tsked at him, tilting his chin back down to finish her work.

“Sometimes,” she said. “Like lightning, between one breath and the other.”

It was the best answer Ori ever got, though as he continued to grow up he felt like something was always missing, and he hoped one day he would turn around and someone would explain it properly to him.

Other dwarves his age didn’t seem particularly bothered, focused more on weapons training and forging and so far as he could ever tell, Ori was the only one who actively thought about what it might be like to find his one someday.

He paid attention to his learning, to his sketches and writings, often sitting in on Balin’s lessons to Fili and Kili. Gimli ignored them as much as he could, and often times Kili would slink out as quickly as possible. Ori stayed out of interest and a desire to learn, and Fili seemed to stay because of his responsibility over a deep seated affection for learning.

Except one day Balin had them working on writing and Ori looked over across the study to where Fili hunched over the parchment in front of him. Ink stains were along his fingers and a bit on his cheek, his braids almost brushing the paper as he tried to reproduce Balin’s writing perfectly and Ori felt like he’d been punched in the gut and whirled around so fast he didn’t know which way was up or down. Ori sucked in another breath and figured out exactly what he had been missing as something curled up in his heart, content to stay there for a long time.

He sat there, trying to breath until Fili finally glanced up. “Oi,” he rumbled, voice low in his chest and Ori almost twitched off his stool. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Ori managed, hands shaking on his quill. He didn’t add that he felt like the world had just changed, or like some revelation had landed on his head like a hammer, or that he might have fallen in love between one breath and the other.

 _You’re my one_ , he tried out in his head, meeting Fili’s eyes and his hand shook more.

“Are you certain?” Fili asked, tilting his head, braids falling with the movement and Ori nodded again.

“Perfectly,” he assured and when Fili offered him a tiny smile before turning back to his work Ori’s heart stopped for a moment.

After that it got easier and harder. It took several months, but he could look at Fili again without feeling like something had crashed into the side of his head and leaving him breathless. Except the more he watched Fili, the harder it was not to touch him, not to scream it in his ear, not to leave hand knit scarves where he could find them or anything else Ori could produce.

Though, he thought somewhat miserably, watching Fili go through a sword routine with Gimli, who was grumbling about using a sword and not his axe, knit wear wouldn’t suit Fili. He was the heir of Thorin, who might one day be King Under the Mountain, and he dressed in furs and leathers, silver clasps everywhere in his braids and weapons he and his ancestors had forged. The thought of a scarf around his neck was ridiculous, a sweater even more so.

It got harder because Ori wanted more than ever to touch the other, feel whatever Fili felt like and he was almost ready to start sparring with him for the sake of brief touches.  If Fili would even allow that and not laugh him off the training grounds, that was, and Ori wasn’t so sure the latter wouldn’t be his fate.

Ori wasn’t sure what he was going to do with the rest of his life. Stories had warned that sometimes dwarves loved someone who never returned their feelings, and while he resigned himself to becoming one of those warnings, he hadn’t really expected it to hurt so much.

Kili strolled onto the training grounds, having come from talking animatedly to Dwalin, and Fili promptly tripped his younger brother, who went down with a yelp. Ori laughed as the two brothers started wrestling then and there, Gimli looking annoyed that they were distracting each other. Finally he seemed to convince Kili weapons were better than wrestling and they stared working on throwing knives.

Fili watched for a while, calling out suggestions and getting a stone tossed at his head, Kili grumbling that he had better aim than Fili anyway. Laughing, Fili ducked his head out of the stone’s path, moving slightly more toward Ori as he did so. He looked over and stopped entirely, staring at Ori who looked back at him in confusion.

For a long moment they just looked at each other, Fili’s eyes wide and Ori’s full of confusion before Kili tossed another stone toward his brother’s head, startling him. Fili snapped his eyes away and shook out his limbs before moving quickly away from where Ori was sitting, flowing back into the weapons training.

Ori looked after him, still in confusion before packing the moment away as nothing important that he should not read anything into.

Except something seemed to change, as Fili either seemed to avoid him entirely, even turning around on occasion to go the other way, or Fili would seem to go out of his way to make sure Ori was comfortable, passing him food first or making sure he had all the supplies he would need for their continued lessons with Balin.

One night Ori came home to find Dori muttering something about silly young princes hanging around where they shouldn’t and he couldn’t make heads nor tails of it.

Things lulled after that, the flow of live in the Blue Mountains continuing as usual, as Ori slowly convinced himself he could live his entire life like this, happy with his writing and drawing and pretending he hadn’t already found his one.

He figured he would be lying about that forever, if anyone ever asked him as he got older. No dwarf appeared to assume he should have already found his one, so he hoped there would be enough time to really perfect that lie.

Meandering up the mountain side one night, looking for a particular herb to catalogue, Ori stopped as he heard what sounded like a fiddle in the clear evening air. Hesitating just a moment he moved forward again, finding Fili sitting propped up on a rock, his fiddle under his chin. For a while Fili didn’t notice him, continuing to play before glancing over and stopping.

“You know,” he said. “It’s usually good to announce yourself.”

“I didn’t realize you knew how to play a song that sad,” Ori blurted and flushed when Fili gave him an incredulous look. “Well, you’ve never played one before,” he amended, looking to the side.

“I’m a dwarf,” Fili said, with a wry smile. “Heir to a kingdom I’ve never seen having lived outside its walls in a time of Diaspora. Of course I know all the sad songs of our people.”

Still blushing, Ori shuffled his feet. “You played it well,” he said, looking down.

Fili looked at him in silence before shrugging and gesturing next to him. “Stay if you like,” he said, already looking back to his fiddle. “Or not.”

Without even having to think about it, Ori plopped down beside him, watching the way Fili’s fingers moved on the instrument, completely enraptured. “That was a love song,” he said when it ended and Fili’s glance down was too quick and sharp but Ori continued. “A very sad and old love song.”

“Are you surprised I know that one too now?” Fili asked, quirking a brow up.

“No,” Ori said, flushing again and looking down. After a moment of heavy silence, Fili started another song, one that started as a dirge and lifted slowly through the melody and Ori pressed his side against the rock Fili was perched on and tried to remind himself to breath.

“Hey, Ori,” Fili said, putting his fiddle in his lap and Ori’s eyes snapped up, breath stuttering in his chest.

“Yeah?” Ori managed.

“Do you really believe all that stuff about your one?” Fili asked. “That every dwarf loves one person and they alone?”

“Don’t you?” Ori asked, looking up and Fili frowned.

“I asked you first,” he said, plucking one of the fiddle’s strings and shaking his head. “That sounded petulant.”

Ori’s mouth quirked. “No, you had asked first. And,” he hesitated, pulling at the hem of his knit sweater. “Yes, I do actually.”

“Why?” Fili looked down at him and Ori tried not to think about how the moon caught his golden hair and turned it silvery and that sight was like all the wealth in the mountain coming together at once.

“Because I think I found them,” he said past a dry throat and suddenly Fili’s eyes closed off and he looked away, plucking almost angrily at the strings of his fiddle.

“I hope you’ll be very happy,” Fili said and before Ori could say anything else the blond dwarf struck up another song, something that sounded like it belonged in a forge deep under the mountain, the music spinning a tale of dwarves and their love and greed and Ori couldn’t figure out a single thing to say during any of it.

“Fili,” he tried when the song ended and Fili rose, giving him a curt bow from where Ori was still curled up against the rock.

“Good night, Ori,” he said, before taking off with his fiddle toward the entrance to the halls under the mountain, leaving Ori staring after him.

They didn’t talk again for a while, Fili definitely avoiding him when he could, surrounding himself with his brother and Gimli and spending more and more time with his uncle. Ori tried not to notice or think about what that encounter could have possibly meant, even as they moved around each other in the hallways.

Their lessons with Balin continued, and one day the elder dwarf was called away, muttering into his beard about the effectiveness of young politicians and morons. When Balin was gone, Fili didn’t even look up from the text he was reading, Ori putting the finishing touches on a sketch he’d done for a book on herb and plant lore.

Except he became so nervous with Fili just sitting there that when the prince rose Ori knocked the purple ink right off his desk. He stared at it in shock and horror, even more so when Fili swooped down to start cleaning it up.

“What’re—?”

“It’s nothing,” Fili said, not looking up at him as Ori stared down at his golden hair and braids.

“I think it’s you,” he blurted and shrank back when Fili’s eyes snapped up.

“What?”

Ori’s eyes widened in horror but he pressed on, since it had already been said. “When you asked—and I said I thought—I think it’s you.”

“Ori,” Fili said, voice low and Ori swallowed. “Just so I’m very clear you think—?” Ori nodded very quickly and before Fili could say anything else Balin fluttered back in, still shaking his head and stroking his beard.

Making a fumbling excuse, Ori turned and slid off his stool, moving quickly for the hall. Fili stared after him as Balin tutted about the spilled ink before Fili was striding down the hall after him. Looking from the spilled ink to the door, Balin sighed, shaking his head before going to finish what Fili had started, murmuring something about young dwarves being willfully blind.

Ori had barely made it around the first turn when Fili caught up with him, grabbing his shoulder and turning him around. “I’m sorry—” he started with Fili crowding him against the wall, shutting up instantly as Fili tilted his head down and shoved their mouths together. It took them a moment to figure it out, how to fit noses in the right places and Fili grunted when Ori accidently bit his lip.

“You better not have been joking,” Fili said in the tiny space he left between them when he pulled back. “And that better have meant what I thought it did.”

“I wasn’t joking,” Ori said, breathless. “And I meant exactly that. Please tell me you aren’t—”

“Please tell me you aren’t even about to accuse me of joking,” Fili murmured, hands tightening on Ori’s shoulders.

Blinking, Ori shook his head. “Not after you said that,” he said.

“Good,” Fili murmured, voice low and Ori could feel the vibration against his chest, tilting his chin up more. For a moment they just looked at each other, grounding themselves in the moment before Fili leaned down again. When he pressed their mouths together this time the movement was slower, allowing them time to adjust to the feel of another’s mouth.

Fili had barely coaxed Ori’s mouth open, the touch of his tongue sending a jolt all the way down to Ori’s spine before the heavy tread of a dwarf’s boots echoed in the hallway. Jerking back, Fili pressed his back to the wall next to Ori, trying to look casual there as the dwarf tromped by, not even sparing them a glance. When she was gone, Fili glanced back over. “Will we do that again?” he asked, voice low and Ori nodded quickly. “Good,” Fili said, brushing a hand over Ori’s cheek and twining around the tiny braids in his beard before Fili slipped away down the hall and Ori turned to make sure Balin didn’t need help with the spilled ink still.

A while passed where Ori wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. When they met Fili would smile at him, brushing their fingers together as they passed and if they both were not going somewhere and no one else was around Ori would pack Fili into the nearest corner to see how far he could get in mapping the inside of the other’s mouth.

When they had a lesson with Balin the entire hour felt like seeing how often they could sneak glances at each other before Balin huffed and shooed them both out, claiming he had real work to get done with.

Ori strolled down the hallway, noticing Fili coming toward him a week later and he grinned as Fili hurried him off to the side. “Hello,” he said as Fili laughed, leaning down to kiss him. For a moment they didn’t say anything, Ori’s fingers curling behind Fili’s ear.

“Hey,” Fili said, finally pulling back. “I did actually have something to say.”

“What was it?” Ori asked with a faint smile and Fili laughed.

“You almost made me forget. Uncle asked if I would go with him for a few days,” he said and Ori blinked in shock. “Just a few days,” he assured off Ori’s expression.

“Oh,” Ori managed.

Leaning down against, Fili’s hands cupped Ori’s cheeks. “I wanted to make sure to say goodbye first,” he said. “And that I’ll see you soon as I return.”

“Alright,” Ori murmured, tilting his head back for another kiss before Fili left to continue down the corridor.

Though Ori tried to act entirely normal, helping Balin with his work and spending his evenings with Dori, he realized just how much he’d gotten used to Fili being there, smiling and joking, with his brother or with his fiddle. At night when he went to bed he tried not to think about not having kissed the blond that day.

He sat in his room, working on a sketch and trying not to mope when he heard a knock on his chamber door. Rising, he set the book aside, fully expecting to see Dori on the other side with some request or project. Ori’s eyes snapped wide when Fili stood on the other side, gold hair a tangle despite the careful braids, and fur lined coat he rarely wore under the mountain making him seem wider.

“Hello, Ori,” Fili said and Ori dragged him into his bedchamber, before realizing Fili had never been there before when he looked around in interest. “Dori let me in,” Fili explained. “Said he had somewhere to be though.”

Ori tilted up to kiss the other, Fili wrapping one arm around him. “Welcome home,” he said and Fili grinned.

“I would have been here sooner,” he said and showed Ori the hand not wrapped around his waist, where he held a package. “But I had to see my brother. He’d have skinned me if I didn’t at least say hello to him first. Here, I brought you something.”

Blinking at him, Ori eyed the package. “You came to see me second?” he asked, surprised. “And… you didn’t have to.”

“Come to see you or bring you anything?” Fili asked. “Because I wanted to do both. Here,” he insisted, and Ori accepted the package. Sitting on the edge of the bed he pulled off the heavy paper used to protect the book during travel, eyes lighting when he saw it.

“Thank you,” he said, flipping the book on plants and lore open, marveling at the detail in the illustrations before looking back up at Fili, who’d considered the room before sitting awkwardly on the edge of Ori’s bed. “I missed you,” he said softly.

Fili glanced over with a warm smile. “It was only a few days,” he teased and leaned closer. “I missed you too.”

Closing the book and setting it aside carefully, Ori pressed against Fili’s side. “Did you have a good journey?” he asked, trying to focus on actually talking.

“Yes,” Fili said, shifting around to better face Ori. “Thorin is good company and we achieved what he wanted us to. Did anything pass while I was away?” His hand came up to run through Ori’s braids and he shook his head.

“Nothing, really,” he said before giving in and pulling Fili’s face to his. Shifting into the motion, Fili tugged him forward, and when that motion continued to feel awkward he wrapped his arms around Ori’s waist and hitched him up to straddle his legs.

They both paused, Ori drawing back enough to meet Fili’s eyes. “This is different,” he murmured even as he wiggled forward, making Fili’s breath hitch and his hands tighten on Ori’s waist.

“Do you disapprove?” Fili asked, braids falling back from his face as he tilted his head back to look at where Ori’s face now hovered above him.

“No,” Ori breathed and Fili’s hands traced along his back as their mouths pressed together, Fili licking inside. Ori’s hands scrambled at Fili’s shoulders, and a chuckle rose from deep within Fili’s chest. Feeling the sound, Ori collapsed forward and Fili took advantage of that to shift his hands up underneath the back of Ori’s shirt.

“Can I?” he asked and Ori nodded, the motion jerky and quick. Divesting Ori of the shirt quickly, Fili paused, even as he allowed his hands to roam along the skin, the feel of his fingers different from the fur and leather of his gloves. “Hey, Ori,” he said and Ori took a moment to focus back on his face and words. “Tell me to stop if you want me to,” Fili said, expression serious and Ori had to blink a few times to clear his head. “I’m not doing anything unless—”

Ori nodded before he rolled his hips forward and Fili caught him. As Ori’s finger’s scrambled at the lacings on Fili’s shirt the taller dwarf laid him back down on the bed, remaining upright long enough to yank his own shirt off, discarding the gloves at the same time. “Are you certain?” he started to ask again and Ori reached his hands up to grab the two braids nearest Fili’s face to yank him down into another kiss. Fili groaned into the kiss, hands braced on either side of Ori’s head.

“I like this,” Ori assured him, tugging again on the braids and smiling at the almost pained sound Fili made, breath ghosting over Ori’s cheek. “So please.”

Considering him a moment Fili grinned before sinking back down, rolling their bodies together and placing kisses along Ori’s face and mouth, tilting down to suck at his collarbone. Squirming beneath him, Ori laughed and moaned in turns, mapping out the feel of Fili’s skin.

He snapped out of it when he felt Fili’s fingers drift lower, their pants having disappeared somewhere over the edge of the bed. Ori suspected it might have been the left side, but he hadn’t really been paying attention.

Tensing, he felt Fili pause, fingers pressed against Ori’s hole that he’d rarely ever thought about. “Stop,” he almost squeaked out and Fili pulled back quickly. Taking a breath to push back the panic he felt, Ori tilted his head back before focusing on Fili.

“Are you alright?” Fili asked, eyes widened. After a moment, Ori nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said, shifting. “I’m sorry,” he repeated and Fili blinked once before shaking his head and leaning up to kiss Ori’s temple.

“Didn’t I say I’d do nothing you didn’t want?” Fili murmured and Ori relaxed again slightly.

“But you wanted—” he started and flushed, Fili chuckling again.

“I did, and I do,” Fili replied, brushing Ori’s hair back and trailing a hand down his chest. “But there’s time, isn’t there?” He hesitated, frowning suddenly. “There will be other times?”

Ori startled before nodding. “Yes, yes, by Mahal there had better be.”

Smirking, FIli laughed. “Then another time,” he murmured against Ori’s ear. “I can wait for things. And there’s more than one way,” he continued, one hand trailing further down to stroke Ori, the other braced above his head. “To find pleasure here.”

“You don’t—you don’t mind then?” Ori asked, gasp interrupting him in the middle and Fili nuzzled against his ear, Ori’s hips jerking up against him.

“No,” Fili said and moaned when Ori tugged on his braids again. “I’m sure we can figure something out.”

Letting his head fall back, Ori gave himself entirely to Fili’s ministrations and the feel of the other dwarf above him, and he came with a high keen and his hands still tangled in Fili’s hair.

Fili coaxed him through it with a smile and when Ori’s eyes focused again, he returned the smile, expression fuzzy. Bracing his hands on either side of Ori’s head, Fili leaned down to kiss him, the motion slow and belaying how desperate Fili felt.

Taking a breath, Ori shifted his hands downward, leaving Fili’s braids to wrap around him. Nuzzling his mouth against Fili’s ear he could feel each of Fili’s breaths. “I used to watch you, you know,” Ori murmured and Fili twitched.

“What?” he asked, tilting his head slightly and arching his entire body.

“I’d watch you,” Ori explained, breath hitching. “I’d watch you all the time. The way you’d move, the way you’d fight and train.” Fili shuddered and he moved his hands faster. “I couldn’t stand the way you’d play the fiddle,” he said. “Your hands—I’d only think of them moving like that and—” Fili whined against his ear, shuddering and finally collapsing.

Ori breathed, trying to calm the racing of his heart beat as he nuzzled into Fili’s golden hair. He thought for certain that they would remain like that, and tried not to protest when Fili rose. “Are you—?” he started to ask and Fili came back with the small bowl of water Ori kept for washing his hands of ink.

“This will be cold, probably,” Fili said, hesitating before using a cloth and the water to clean them both, Ori squirming. That time, when Fili collapsed they curled around each other and fell asleep.

Waking up later, Ori lit a few candles and stopped, looking down at where Fili sprawled out over his bed, golden hair a mess around his face and skin reflecting the same color in the candle light. Breath catching Ori sat at the foot of the bed, watching him before scrambling for his paper and ink, finding a yellowed parchment to start quickly sketching the lines of Fili’s body on.

A while later Fili stirred, disturbing his pose, although Ori had captured most of the shape and line of his body by then. “Ori?” he asked, voice rough from sleep and pushed himself up on his elbows, eying the parchment in vague confusion.

“Hello,” Ori managed and Fili moved to press against Ori’s back, chin on his shoulder. Nervous now, Ori continued sketching the lines of Fili’s body.

“Is that really how you see me?” Fili asked, tilting his head as his hands wrapped around Ori’s waist.

Ori paused before nodding. “Yes,” he said, shading in a line of muscle.

For a while they stayed like that, Fili wrapped around him and watching him draw, hands making lazy circles on Ori’s stomach. “Why are you here?” Ori asked after a moment, hands stilling on the paper in front of him.

Fili hesitated a long moment. “How do you mean?” he asked, hands flattening and holding onto Ori’s skin.

“I know why—” Ori started and realized that sounded wrong but pressed on anyway. “Why I am… attracted to you, why I want you. It makes sense,” he said, not wanting to admit again that he thought for certain that Fili was the one he’d ever love and having felt like this he’d never figure out how to love another.

“You’re asking me why I might love you?” Fili said, something pained entering his voice. “As if I could qualify it?” He took a deep breath, shaking his head slightly, moustache braids trailing along Ori’s shoulder. “And if I asked you the same, how might you qualify your affection for me? Why do you care for me?”

Ori’s breath hitched at the word love and he looked down at his hands. “You’re brave,” he murmured. “And beautiful. Your laugh, and the music you create, and the responsibility I see in your eyes. You’re a warrior and a prince.”

Fili remained silent and Ori wasn’t even sure he was breathing anymore. “Is that all?” he asked, voice low.

“No,” Ori murmured, shifting though Fili didn’t loosen his embrace. “No that’s not nearly all. I can’t, I couldn’t describe it,” he said, turning his head to try and get a better look at Fili’s face. “There’s everything about you, though you frustrate me somedays too and you and your brother are right horrors but there’s something I could never explain about why—why I look at you and my heart stops and it feels entirely right to say I love you.”

Finally Fili’s expression warmed again, tilting his head enough to kiss Ori’s cheek. “I could say,” he rumbled. “That you’re wise, and lovely, and very kind. Or that I’ve spent a lot of time watching you draw and scribble for Balin, expression so enraptured by words and thoughts. That you’re brave and foolish and wonderful. But none of those things would really be it. Those words, that qualification, wouldn’t explain half the things I feel when I look at you.”

Letting out a long breath, Ori sank further into Fili’s embrace. “Can I say I love you then?” he asked, voice quiet and felt Fili smile into his shoulder, splitting the other’s lips wide.

“Mahal, yes,” Fili said. “My one whom I adore.”

Later, when Ori dressed, Fili pulled the knit cardigan down over his ears with a fond smile, even as he shouldered his leather and fur coat back on. “Do you think anyone will be about to see?” Ori asked and Fili shrugged.

“If they are, then we deal with it. If not,” Fili paused. “I don’t mind keeping you to myself longer.”

Ori paused, shifting. “Will it be,” he started and stopped. “Will it be terribly awkward?”

Fili considered before shaking his head. “Hopefully not. It’ll come though, and we’ll deal with it.”

Except no one was about when they slipped out and Ori let out a long breath of relief as they wove their way to the training grounds, where Kili gave them both a hard look.

“Long night, brother?” Kili asked and Fili just shrugged, Ori’s stomach turning over.

“It was well enough,” Fili said and Kili shook his head.

“I swear to Mahal,” Kili said under his breath before wrestling with his brother, who laughed and shook him off. “This is just going to put more pressure on me to settle down with a dwarf lass, as suddenly that’s no longer your option. You’re going to be like Uncle Thorin, with your sibling providing all the heirs.”

Fili laughed, golden hair shining as his brother continued to grumble about inconsiderate older brothers and Ori gaped at him, shocked at how easy Kili’s world view flowed to accept something that had almost stopped Ori entirely in his tracks.

With a smile, Fili gestured him over to them, teasing Kili that he should help Ori practice his aim with the slingshot, Kili once again rolling his eyes.

“Brother,” he drawled. “Is horrible with aiming that doesn’t involve a blade like his wee axes. Come on then,” he said, shoving Ori toward the practice targets.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Ori watched Fili smile warmly at him and felt Kili pester around him like suddenly he was part of the family and felt like maybe, just maybe, things were perfect.

He’d finally figured out where to belong and he’d finally figured out what all those stories were talking about.

 


End file.
